Immigration remains a significant issue on both the national and global agenda. The United States is known for its multicultural structure, where various ethnic, cultural, and religious groups coexist—a concept closely tied to the idea of American exceptionalism. However, immigration policies and rhetoric vary greatly depending on political leadership. In this context, Donald Trump has emerged in recent years as two opposing figures on immigration. Trump frequently portrayed immigrants as a threat, using terms like “illegal immigrants,” “border wall,” and linking immigration to “drugs and crime.” His approach, rooted in national security and sovereignty, contrasts with the ideals of multiculturalism and American exceptionalism. The aim of the study is to analyze Donald Trump's discourses, which includes campaign rallies, campaign speeches, television interviews, presidential debates, press statements, and official social media posts, on migrants between 2016 and 2024 by closely scrutinizing the discourses that portray migrants as a threat and target specific cultural groups, especially Mexican, Latin American, and Muslim immigrants. The conceptual and historical framework will be clarified to reveal the historical origins and basic characteristics of the concept of American exceptionalism. Then, the discourses used by Trump in the context of the immigrant topos will be closely scrutinized and critical discourse analysis will be applied. In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis is employed not merely as a method of linguistic analysis, but rather as a theoretical and methodological approach grounded in the critique of power policies directed toward immigrants, with the aim of revealing the ways in which Trump’s discourse has reshaped the narrative of American exceptionalism.
American exceptionalism, Critical Discourse Analysis, Donald Trump, Migration, Ruth Wodak